Younicos has signed a deal to partner with Panasonic and Xcel Energy on a solar plus storage system for a smart transit and microgid project underway in Denver.
The energy storage company will provide a 1 MW/2 MWh grid-connected battery system for Panosonic’s Denver operations hub. The project is part of a smart city project that incorporates Peña Station NEXT, a 400-acre transit development.
Younicos will design, build and install four of its modular Y.Cubes, a storage-in-a-box product for commercial and industrial customers that includes software controls that enable grid transactions.
The energy storage system will provide grid frequency regulation, solar grid integration through ramp control, grid peak shaving and energy arbitrage, as well as back-up power.
Younicos says that the system’s “multi-mode operating capability” will allow Panasonic, Xcel Energy, and other microgrid stakeholders to derive maximum benefits from Xcel Energy’s 1.6 MW solar PV system sited on a parking structure nearby, along with 259 kW of PV on the building’s rooftop.
“The solar-plus-storage microgrid is an anchor, not just of Panasonic’s new Denver operations hub, but also for the broader Peña Station NEXT development, which is a 400-acre, smart and sustainable transit-oriented development in Denver,” said Jamie Evans, managing director of the Energy Solutions Group at Panasonic Enterprise Solutions Company.
The project is part of a plan by Denver to make the Pena Station area into what Panasonic describes as an ultra-modern connected community “with smart, sustainable technologies and responsive infrastructure that taps into the real-time analytics made possible by big data and the Internet of Things.”